Gove, talented reformer and back stabber, leaves the stage
Rollercoaster career saw him established as one of the most powerful politicians of the century
MICHAEL GOVE was the enigma who had as many ups and downs as 14 years of Tory government, and his decision to stand down ends the career of arguably the most powerful MP of this century never to have been prime minister.
Twice a loser in leadership elections, he nevertheless had the ability to make or break the careers of others, and was perhaps the only great reformer the Conservatives have produced since returning to power in 2010.
In Westminster he will be remembered above all for stabbing Boris Johnson in the back and ending his 2016 leadership bid in one of the most remarkable political betrayals of modern times. His reform of the education system, though, is one of the few achievements the Tories can point to in terms of domestic policy.
Aberdeen-born Gove joined the Labour Party at 16 but switched to the Conservatives as an English student at Oxford, where he befriended his contemporary Mr Johnson. He embarked on a career as a journalist, working for Scottish Television and later The Times, before turning his hand to politics and winning election as the MP for Surrey Heath in 2005.
He quickly became part of the Notting Hill Set led by David Cameron and George Osborne, who valued his rich fund of ideas and grasp of how to put them into action.
When the future Lord Cameron became prime minister in 2010 at the head of the coalition government, he appointed Mr Gove as education secretary, where he slashed Labour’s school-building programme, set up academies and took his red pen to the national curriculum, putting Dickens, Austen and Keats back on the compulsory study list and introducing a tougher testing regime.
Mr Gove reflected on his achievements in the role in his departure letter, highlighting that England’s secondary schools were ranked 27th for maths, 25th for reading and 16th for science. “Now that reform has bedded in, England has risen to 11th for maths and 13th for reading and science,” he wrote. “At primary level, England’s children are now the best readers in the western world.”
But all four teaching unions passed no confidence motions in him at their 2013 conferences and the following year the then Mr Cameron demoted him to chief whip on the advice of his election guru Sir Lynton Crosby, who warned him that Mr Gove’s toxic image was turning voters off.
Sir Lynton, it was said, had taken against Mr Gove partly because of a distrust and dislike of his chief aide, a certain Dominic Cummings, who accused Mr Cameron of “surrender” for sacking his boss.
The ruthless move was blamed by some Tories for putting other ministers off the idea of full-throated reforms. The falling out with Mr Cameron was seen as part of the reason Mr Gove, by now justice secretary, threw in his lot with Vote Leave – and its mastermind Mr Cummings – when the EU referendum was called in 2016.
His support for the Leave campaign helped make up the mind of his old friend Mr Johnson and at a dinner at the latter’s house where the only other guest was, curiously, Russian-born Evening Standard owner Evgeny Lebedev, they formed a partnership that shaped the fate of the country, not to mention Mr Cameron.
The result of the referendum ended the PM’s tenureship, and in the resulting leadership election Mr Gove, who had previously said he was “incapable” of leading his party, initially backed Mr Johnson.
But hours before the deadline for nominations closed, Mr Gove withdrew his support and announced his own candidacy, saying he no longer had confidence in his friend.
It was described by The Telegraph as “the most spectacular political assassination in a generation” and forever marked Mr Gove out as untrustworthy as far as many Tory MPs were concerned.
Mr Johnson would later claim that Mr Gove had enlisted the help of “double agent” MP Nick Boles to set him up for the fall: Mr Johnson had agreed with leadership rival Andrea Leadsom that she would fall in behind him, which they were to confirm by text hours before nominations closed.
When Mr Johnson did not reply to her text, she assumed the deal was off, and she ran against him, which Mr Gove used to help justify his own decision to enter the race.
Mr Johnson later realised that on the night in question, he had spent the evening at a Tory event where Mr Boles had volunteered to “look after” his mobile phone to avoid distractions. It meant that Mr Johnson did not see Ms Leadsom’s text until it was too late, and Mr Boles also failed to carry out instructions to send Ms Leadsom a letter confirming the deal.
Mr Johnson, fatally undermined, withdrew from the race, and Theresa May, who won the contest, sacked the scheming Mr Gove from the Cabinet.
He was brought back in 2017 as environment secretary, where he banned microbeads and plastic straws, and when Mrs May resigned in 2019 he again stood against Mr Johnson, though this time the latter won, and Mr Gove came third. Mr Johnson gave him a roving brief as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, though they had an uneasy relationship.
During the Covid pandemic Mr Gove, a fierce advocate of lockdowns, was again up to his old tricks as he bounced Mr Johnson into taking decisions that he instinctively disliked.
Libertarian Mr Johnson reportedly preferred to “let the bodies pile high” rather than ordering a second lockdown in 2020, and as he prepared to spend a weekend considering his options he was appalled to wake up on to see newspaper headlines that a second lockdown was happening.
He had no doubt who had briefed the media, telling aides: “This is Michael, isn’t it?” Unwilling to expose the rift during the crisis, he announced another lockdown. Mr Gove spent what have proved to be the final years of his ministerial career as the man in charge of levelling up, communities and housing, a brief that both Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak gave him.
He played a small part in helping to bring down Liz Truss, saying on a Sunday morning politics show that cutting the top rate of tax from 45 per cent to 40 per cent was wrong, and backed Kemi Badenoch as her replacement. In recent years, living as a bachelor after his marriage to journalist Sarah Vine ended, he drifted into centrist policies that put him at odds with many of his colleagues.
His Renters Reform Bill – which died a death when a July election was called – would have banned no fault evictions, meaning landlords would have needed to go to court to get rid of problem tenants. Property owners accused him of wanting to punish them, and many Tory MPs agreed.
Mr Gove’s departure will leave the Conservative Party without one of its most influential figures of the past 20 years. But at least his colleagues won’t have to spend so much time looking over their shoulders.